Imagen del libro "A Vulnerabilidade do Ser", cortesía de Claudia Andujar

Por Marina Barbosa *

COPENHAGUE (Tierramérica) En la mitología de los baniwas, yanomamis y  desanas, etnias que habitan el noroeste del estado brasileño de Amazonas fronterizo con Colombia y Venezuela, se encuentran explicaciones y advertencias sobre el cambio climático.

Según André  Baniwa, viceintendente del municipio de São Gabriel da Cachoeira, los efectos del clima ya fueron previstos por hombres de grandes poderes.

Esos fenómenos ya ocurrieron en épocas remotas de la humanidad, cuando se dio la ruptura de la convivencia armónica entre los humanos, los animales y la naturaleza.

Baniwa nació en la comunidad de Tucumã-Rupitã, en el Alto Río Içana y fue entre 2005 y 2009 vicepresidente de la Federación de las Organizaciones Indígenas del Río Negro (FOIRN).

El mito de la creación, que también se refiere al fin del mundo para los yanomamis, menciona la “caída del cielo”, momento en el que los humanos, sumergidos en el agua del diluvio, guerreaban con los seres mágicos. Esa imagen constituye su mayor miedo, según la premiada fotógrafa suiza Claudia Andujar, que trabaja con ese grupo hace 30 años.
Para los yanomamis, eso puede ocurrir, si la humanidad no revierte el proceso de destrucción actual, así como dicen también los baniwas.

José María Lana, habitante desana del alto río Negro y miembro de la dirección actual de la FOIRN, afirma que los indicios de lo advertido por los mitos ya son perceptibles.

El sol hoy quema de manera distinta. El período de floración ha cambiado. Las lluvias, que caían en los meses de abril y mayo, ahora se concentran en julio y agosto. La “piracema” –desove de los peces– ocurre en un sitio diferente.

Todo eso interfiere en la reproducción de las especies animales y vegetales, alterando los ciclos de alimentación de los pueblos de la floresta e interfiriendo en sus rituales tradicionales, que están íntimamente ligados a los ciclos naturales.

David Yanomami sostiene que el humo producido por la acción humana es el causante de ese gran daño. Este chamán y líder de su etnia, premiado internacionalmente, vive en Watoriki, en el norteño estado de Roraima, en la frontera con Venezuela.

Proveniente de las industrias, las bombas, la combustión del petróleo y también del veneno invisible que sale de la tierra en la extracción de minerales, la contaminación es la causa de las enfermedades, dice Yanomami. Muchas de ellas son hoy desconocidas para los chamanes, que hasta hace poco tiempo disponían de métodos para manejar las principales dolencias que asolaban a esos grupos.

Esos alertas son lanzados por estos líderes desde hace décadas, pero aún no existe capacidad plena para oírlos, quizás por la dificultad para comprender la visión  tradicional de esos grupos, cargada de simbologías y de lenguajes asociativos.

Aún más conscientes que los ciudadanos de las urbes de la dependencia humana con la naturaleza y las selvas, los indígenas tienen mucho para enseñar y pueden conducir una reflexión sobre el modelo de desarrollo adoptado hasta ahora.

En septiembre, representantes de esos grupos se reunieran en la norteña ciudad de Manaus para elaborar la carta de los pueblos indígenas de la Amazonia brasileña sobre el cambio climático, que forma parte del documento de la delegación de este país en la conferencia de cambio climático que se celebra en Copenhague sobre la iniciativa Reducción de Emisiones de Carbono causadas por la Deforestación y Degradación de los Bosques (REDD).

La carta expresa la posición de estos grupos sobre el tema y reúne propuestas de acciones de mitigación, sobre todo en lo que se refiere a la preservación de la Amazonia y la contribución del conocimiento tradicional a las nuevas estrategias frente a las alteraciones del clima.

Está comprobado que las tierras indígenas son más eficientes para evitar la deforestación y retener carbono. Los líderes reivindican el derecho a la restitución integral de sus territorios y a ser beneficiarios de los pagos por servicios ambientales y por la comercialización de créditos de carbono, en el marco de la REDD, que podría ser uno de los pocos logros de la COP-15.

Además, solicitan que los fondos destinados a contener la tala sean reglamentados de manera adecuada a las particularidades socioculturales de las diferentes etnias y que se destinen a fortalecer sus organizaciones y a apoyar sus programas y proyectos de preservación de la biodiversidad y del conocimiento tradicional.

Para esas poblaciones, la selva posee lugares sagrados, habitados por seres “superiores” que tienen la capacidad de “curar el planeta” y de equilibrar los efectos del calentamiento, las alteraciones climáticas y las enfermedades. André Baniwa afirma que la tecnología y el dinero nos engañan. El valor está en la armonía entre los humanos y entre éstos y la naturaleza.

Es de esperar que las acciones de la COP-15 consideren lo que esas etnias dicen hace tanto tiempo.

* Marina Barbosa, maestra en antropología por la Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo y especialista en desarrollo. Integra la delegación de Brasil en la COP-15. Este artículo es publicado por la red de diarios de Tierramérica.

Laura Tuck

By Laura Tuck*

COPENHAGEN (IPS/TerraViva) What happens at the global summit this week in Copenhagen is of utmost importance for Latin America and the Caribbean.

While expectations are that binding agreements on emission targets will probably not be signed until next year in Mexico City, there are many decisions – such as compensation for avoiding deforestation, technology transfers, financing of greenhouse gas reductions and adaptation to climate change – in play. The region has a stake in all of these and can play a critical role in reaching agreement on each.

Many Latin American and Caribbean countries have already made commitments to reduce their carbon footprints. The region’s two largest economies have led on climate policies, with Brazil focused on reducing deforestation, and Mexico on implementing its “Special Climate Change Program”, a comprehensive low-carbon development model.

Costa Rica, which has pledged to become the first carbon-neutral country in the world, is a global pioneer in paying landowners – from a gasoline tax fund – for forest conservation. Argentina’s renewable energy programs in rural areas provide electricity at low cost, while making a positive contribution to productivity and job creation.

These countries have taken steps to reduce emissions despite the fact that the region produces only 6 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, or 13 percent, when deforestation and agriculture are included. Latin America’s relatively low emissions are due in large part to a greater dependence on hydroelectricity over coal-fired plants.

The region’s power sector generates 40 percent less CO2 emissions per unit of energy – known as carbon intensity – than the world as a whole. Considering that these emissions are 74 percent less than those of China and India, and 50 percent less than the average for developing countries, the region is already at the forefront of low-carbon growth.

Yet, this situation is projected to change over the next 25 years, especially as its transport and industrial sectors grow. Taking actions now to move to even greater dependence on renewable energy will ensure its place among the world’s most climate-friendly regions.

As one of the world’s richest regions in biodiversity, and home to one-third of the world’s forest biomass, The Latin America and Caribbean region takes its responsibility for preserving and protecting the natural resources that help capture carbon and protect watersheds.

Last month, the Brazilian government announced that deforestation in the Amazon had hit its lowest point since monitoring began 21 years ago, with destruction slowing 45 percent compared to the year before.

One of the most likely outcomes of Copenhagen is a decision on how to compensate and encourage forest protection. For this region, it is a critical issue, considering that deforestation accounts for a large percentage of regional emissions, and countries such as Brazil and Guyana are key negotiators on these issues.

Studies across the region have identified many low carbon options, such as specific energy-efficiency and renewable energy technologies and urban transport or forestry programs, which can be undertaken at low or even no additional costs. In Mexico, for instance, local experts, with assistance from World Bank economists, have identified some 40 measures, such as the development of wind resources and improved vehicle inspections, which can deliver the greatest environmental bang for the economic buck.

The second major topic on the Copenhagen agenda is how the developed world will help developing countries finance the costs of adapting to the impacts of climate change. World Bank studies show that these costs could run between $16 and $19 billion per year by 2020.

Latin America and the Caribbean are already experiencing significant effects from climate change. In the Andes, for instance, tropical glaciers are melting at such a pace that some could simply be gone in 10 to 20 years. Aside from the impact on biodiversity – the eastern slopes of the Andes are the single most biologically diverse area in the world – glacier disappearance will have a tremendous economic impact on some of the region’s poorest residents.

The World Bank is supporting Latin America’s environmental efforts with loans totaling US$3.7 billion for the 2008-2009 period. But much more will be needed, to scale up adaptation efforts and also to finance the acquisition of technologies to curb emissions.

There is much on the line for Latin America in Copenhagen. Significant progress achieved there will go a long way toward the adoption of a legally binding treaty at the next global gathering, in Mexico in 2010. Such an outcome would be a major advance for the world and a tremendous symbol of the leadership shown by the region.

* Laura Tuck is World Bank Sector Director for Sustainable Development in the Latin America and Caribbean region.
(END/2009)

Manuel Rodríguez Becerra, ex ministro de Medio Ambiente de Colombia. Crédito: Confecoop

Por Daniela Estrada

COPENHAGUE (IPS/TerraViva)  “Nos preocupa que la voz de América Latina se hace sentir a través de las ONG multinacionales, que pueden ser muy respetables, como la WWF, Conservación Internacional, Amigos de la Tierra, pero pensamos que debe haber una voz de América Latina que no esté permeada por los intereses del Norte”, dijo a TerraViva el ex ministro de Medio Ambiente de Colombia, Manuel Rodríguez.

“Aunque las ONG (organizaciones no gubernamentales) multinacionales actúan de buena fe es innegable que son dominadas por intereses del Norte, de países industrializados que no necesariamente tienen que coincidir con los intereses de los países como nosotros”, dijo Rodríguez Becerra, tras una sesión en el Klimaforum de Copenhague.

A mediados de este año organizaciones no gubernamentales y privadas de América Latina crearon una plataforma sobre cambio climático para abrir un espacio de pensamiento propiamente regional, relató.

La Plataforma Climática Latinoamericana está conformada por cerca de 20 organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG) y entidades estatales y empresariales de la región. Entre ellas figuran el estatal Fondo Nacional Ambiental de Colombia, el Centro Uruguayo de Tecnologías Apropiadas, la Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento de Argentina, la Fundación Moisés Bertoni de Paraguay y la Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental.

En octubre y noviembre, la Plataforma organizó foros nacionales en cinco países de la región, donde participaron ONG, movimientos sociales, comunidades campesinas, académicos, gobiernos locales y nacionales y medios de comunicación.

Algunos de sus representantes, como Rodríguez, están participando en la 15 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP-15) y el Klimaforum, la cumbre paralela de la sociedad civil, ambas inauguradas el lunes 7 en la capital danesa.

“El objetivo es establecer un espacio para el intercambio, para el diálogo en Latinoamérica sobre el cambio climático, que debe conducir en algunos casos a tener posiciones conjuntas frente al problema a nivel global y a mejorar las políticas internas de cada país para combatirlo y adaptarnos”, dijo Rodríguez, primer ministro de Medio Ambiente de Colombia, profesor de la Universidad de los Andes de Colombia y consultor internacional sobre política ambiental.

TERRAVIVA: ¿Qué aporte distinto pueden hacer las ONGs latinoamericanas en esta materia?

MR: Ayudar a construir una voluntad política en relación al cambio climático, en relación a las cosas que hay que hacer dentro de cada país. Y también que sirva la acción de la Plataforma para generar pensamiento latinoamericano sobre el problema del cambio climático.

América Latina está en capacidad de hacer sus propias conclusiones intelectuales de diferente índole para resolver el problema del cambio climático y para adaptarnos a sus efectos.

TERRAVIVA: ¿En qué podría contribuir América Latina a la lucha contra el cambio climático en el mundo?

MR: Latinoamérica tiene una característica muy especial: de las regiones en desarrollo, es una de las que tiene mayor grado de urbanización. Y buena parte de los problemas de adaptación en el futuro se van a relacionar con esto. Las poblaciones más vulnerables del mundo están en las ciudades, no en el campo.

Y América Latina tiene una urbanización del 80 por ciento. La región puede tomar un liderazgo muy grande en tratar de pensar qué medidas se pueden tomar en ciudades con poblaciones muy vulnerables.

TERRAVIVA: ¿Qué es lo que se juega América Latina en esta COP-15?

MR: Muchas cosas, como se las juegan en general los países en desarrollo. Por ejemplo, cuál es el papel de los bosques en relación al cambio climático. América Latina, y en particular los países amazónicos, tienen el bosque tropical continuo más grande del mundo. También hay bosques muy importantes en otros lugares. Hay países de América Latina, especialmente los insulares del Caribe, que pueden sufrir mucho.

TERRAVIVA: Usted se declara escéptico de la iniciativa REDD (Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación de Bosques), que parece ser una de las cuestiones más concretas que saldrá de la COP-15.

MR: Se está exagerando cuando se dice que la REDD puede detener la deforestación global. Puede contribuir, pero hay unas causas en la deforestación de América Latina que simplemente no se resuelven con un incentivo económico como REDD.

Está todo el tema de los derechos de propiedad donde están ubicados los bosques. Es una causa principal de deforestación y hay que resolverlo, y es un problema de política doméstica, especialmente. No es un problema que se acuerde en una negociación global.

Muchas de las tierras que tienen bosques en el mundo son del Estado, otras son baldíos y algunas están en posesión de comunidades que no tienen títulos de propiedad. Muchos gobiernos otorgan concesiones forestales o mineras sobre tierras que están ocupadas por poblaciones tradicionales, pero sin títulos sobre ellas.

Hay un mundo muy complejo ahí y, naturalmente, en cierto momento que las comunidades se ven amenazadas en su posesión de las tierras, no necesariamente van a cuidar de la mejor forma el bosque.

Jungle on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. Credit: Diana Cariboni/IPS

By Servaas van den Bosch

COPENHAGEN (IPS/TerraViva) With five days to go at COP15 the REDD proposal no longer offers tangible targets for halting deforestation. A safeguard on the conversion of natural forest into plantations has been re-inserted though.

Reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) could lower global CO2 output by 15 percent, say scientists.

After the last UNFCCC session in Barcelona in November, a target of a 50 percent drop in the rate of deforestation by 2020 -and a complete ban on loss of forest cover by 2030 – had provisionally included in the agreement. Both have now been cut from the draft text of the LCA working group on REDD, which is in possession of TerraViva.

The text is still under negotiation and it is expected that final details around REDD funding will only emerge at the ministers’ meeting upcoming week.

Guarding against forest conversion

Critical language about safeguards, rights of indigenous people and drivers of deforestation has been moved from the operational text to the preamble.

“Without targets, REDD becomes toothless,” commented Peg Putt of the Wilderness Society. “The so-called safeguards will be nothing but fancy window dressing unless they are given legal force.”

The safeguards against conversion of natural forests were removed during the UNFCCC meeting in Bangkok in October. Forest campaigners protested this would permit the large-scale destruction of natural forests by converting them into commercial plantations, eligible for REDD funding.

Paragraph 4 of the current draft only “encourages” parties involved in setting up REDD projects to address drivers of deforestation.

“Global demand for forest commodities like illegal timber and palm oil is one of the leading causes of tropical deforestation around the world,” said Andrea Johnson of Environmental Investigation Agency. “If we don’t address the causes of the problem, how can we find a solution?”

Protecting indigenous rights

Similarly the draft agreement does not spell out clear protection for marginalised groups, but encourages parties to pursue “means of ensuring the full and effective participation, taking into account gender considerations of indigenous people and local communities.”

“A mere encouragement would not be enough to make sure the right of indigenous people are respected,” WWF’s climate chief Kim Carstensen told TerraViva. “The current text is too much a preamble and breathes too little decision.”

However, the latest indications from sources within the negotiations are that paragraph 4 will get a more compulsory character. There are also strong signs a suggestion to following United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) could be turned into a binding condition.

“The language on rights of indigenous people is not as strong as we had expected,” says Robert Buhereko, REDD working group coordinator of civil society in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“Many nations, like the DRC, have no national legislation to protect the right of indigenous people, or don’t enforce it. So it’s crucial that countries are bound to UNDRIP, otherwise the agreement is really weak.”

“If UNDRIP becomes binding, it will be interesting to see the reaction of countries that haven’t signed the declaration, like the U.S.,” Lou Verchot, principal scientist at the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) told TerraViva. “That might delay an agreement.”

For the love of peat

The issue of degradation of peat lands, which according to a recent Dutch study attributes to three percent of greenhouse gas emissions – more than global air traffic – has not been included in the agreement to the disappointment of observer groups following the talks.

“Peat soils are a key part of many countries’ plans to reduce their emissions, including large emitters like Indonesia,” said Susanna Tol of Wetlands International. “If peat soils are not in REDD, these efforts will go unsupported.”

The actions that the negotiators did manage to agree on held little surprises. The LCA instructs the SBSTA, the technical body of the UNFCCC to develop a mechanism for measuring, reporting and verifying emissions and calls for adequate funding from industrialised nations.

There’s still disagreement whether finance will be distributed through a new fund established under the Conference of the Parties or “existing bilateral and multilateral channels”.

A controversial issue that has not been resolved it whether to put REDD under the National Appropriate Mitigations Action (NAMA) mechanism that is being negotiated in Copenhagen. The NAMAs encompass all mitigation actions taken by developing countries, rather than just the forest related ones.

“The negotiations on REDD are much further than on NAMAs, so integrating them would be a roadblock for the implementation of REDD,” says Verchor.

He considers the main drawbacks of the text that there is no mention of international leakage (the relocating of emissions) and no indication of the amount of funding that will be required to realise REDD.

“What is encouraging about this draft though is that it’s result-based and that the negotiators have prescribed a clear link between REDD and reducing poverty.”

“REDD cannot just focus on reducing emissions, it most also deliver co-benefits. That is a good thing.”

Alicia Muñoz of La Via Campesina in Chile. Credit: TerraViva/A. Libisch

By Stephen Leahy

COPENHAGEN (IPS/TerraViva) Industrial agriculture may emit nearly half of climate-heating greenhouse gases, but that reality has gone unrecognised by negotiators at the climate treaty talks here, say farmers with La Via Campesina, an international movement of hundreds of millions of small-scale peasant farmers.

“Small-scale farmers use 80 percent less energy than large monocultures,” said Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, a Haitian farmer with Mouvement de Paysan, through a translator.

“Peasant farmers from La Via Campesina and others can help cool the planet,” Jean-Baptiste told a press conference at the Klimaforum09, the alternative climate action talks being held here in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18.

Unlike the official talks, set in a remote location surrounded by police and razor wire, Klimaforum09 is being held in the city’s community centre and is free and open to the public.

“System Change for Climate Change” – that’s the phrase most often heard at the Klimaforum09 and in parts of Copenhagen.

La Via Campesina’s claim that industrial agriculture is by far the biggest source of carbon emissions is based on a recent study that looked at all emissions from the global food system.

This includes oil-dependent industrial farming, together with the expansion of the meat industry, the destruction of world’s savannahs and forests to grow agricultural commodities, the use of fossil fuel energy to transport and process food, and the extensive use of chemical fertilisers.

The study was conducted by GRAIN, an international non-governmental organisation that promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity to support local communities.

“These results are horrifying. So much carbon is lost from the soil using monoculture practices,” said Camila Montecinos, the lead GRAIN researcher from Santiago, Chile.

The study looked at all the available scientific literature and worked with soil scientists to arrive at this “rough” but thorough estimate, Montecinos told TerraViva.

The study does not include methane emissions from animals and their manure because studies conflict and incorporating manure into the soil increases fertility and soil carbon, she explained.

Surprisingly, one-third of the emissions come from food processing and transport, although the former is responsible for most. The bulk of emissions come from land use changes – conversions of forest and grasslands – and from direct agricultural production like fuel use, fertiliser and tillage.

Calculations in the report show that policies oriented towards agriculture in the hands of small farmers and focused on restoring soil fertility could, over the next 50 years, capture about 450 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is more than two-thirds of the current excess in the atmosphere.

“The evidence is irrefutable. If we can change the way we farm and the way we produce and distribute food, then we have a powerful solution for combating the climate crisis. There are no technical hurdles to achieving these results, it is only a matter of political will,” said Henk Hobbelink, coordinator of GRAIN, in a release.

Governmental policies and trade agreements the world over support industrial agriculture production and the study shows this must change in order to stabilise the climate, Montecinos said. “No governments are talking about this,” she noted.

Worse still, many of those policies are pushing small farmers off the land, the ones who are by far the most efficient in terms of carbon emissions and energy use, she said.

Ending such policies and giving the lands back to small farmers could result in major emission reductions on the order of 50 to 66 percent, said La Via Campesina in a news release.

“Such a transformation of world agriculture would not only greatly contribute to solving the climate crisis – it would also provide healthy food for all – as well as provide livelihoods to millions of women and men,” the group said.

When asked what he would like to tell the negotiators at the official climate talks, Jean-Baptiste said: “We have to change the model of production and consumption, especially in the northern half of the world.”

“Corporate control and concentration has not provided any solutions. Instead people suffering more than ever,” Alicia Muñoz from Via Campesina in Chile told TerraViva. “The men standing up there [at the official negotiations] will never solve the problems of poverty and climate change.”

“Women need to be involved and part of the solution,” she stressed.

Credit: Claudius

By Ashok Khosla *

COPENHAGUE (IPS/TerraViva) Systemic failures, such as sudden changes in climate, accelerated loss of biodiversity and rapid growth of poverty and population, can only be solved by systemic solutions that address the deeper, underlying causes of these failures.

Moreover, since many of these problems are inter-related, they generally have to be solved together – where possible – to get maximum all-round benefits at least cost; when necessary, to minimize the likelihood of ameliorating one while worsening the others.Climate change is but one of the dozen or so major crises facing humankind today. Others include massive extinction of species, destruction of land and water resources, peaking of oil and gas production, acidification of the oceans and disruption of biogeochemical cycles through large-scale extraction of mineral resources – all of which are inexorably leading to growing food insecurity.

No less important are the non-environmental threats to human societies in the form of widespread poverty and hunger, alienation, violence and terrorism – and, not least, increasingly frequent, ever more serious and far-reaching financial and economic breakdowns – further intensifying human insecurity.

Over the nearly 40 years that have elapsed since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment took place in Stockholm in 1972, numerous global summits and major conferences have taken place, each trying to find technical, financial and political solutions to such issues, as new ones seem to mushroom out on the international community year by year.

It is to the credit of national governments that they have made some attempt to address these issues in successive negotiating processes.  However, the lack of success, overall, suggests that there are some basic flaws in these processes.

From the vantage point of systems science, one basic flaw seems to be the strategy adopted in almost all international negotiations, of dealing with a single issue at a time. Clearly, this is a simpler device with which governments are much more comfortable and their specialized advisors are at much greater ease.

But looking at the history of environmental negotiations, one is struck by the constancy of this approach, even when it is demonstrably not capable of delivering the results needed. Could it be that this myopic stance is a result of the “salami tactics” adopted by the dominant participants who guide the definition of the problem, set the agenda, specify the rules of debate, work out the plans of action – all the while restricting all discussion strictly to the one issue at hand?

The systems view is entirely alien to the current negotiations – it is in fact discouraged by the dominant players, who have played the single-issue, focus and compartmentalize game (a sophisticated version of the “divide and rule” approach of erstwhile colonial empires) on all environmental issues, ever since Stockholm.

Indeed, precisely the same approach has been extensively used throughout the 60 years since the UN and Bretton Woods institutions were set up in areas as diverse as global economic and financial issues, trade, commodities, etc. Does this consistent pattern of suppressing discussion of meaningful potential solutions amount to a conflict of interest on a worldwide scale; could it be a tactic by powerful players to bias the rules of the international game in their own favour at the expense of the global good?

At this event, we hope to gather leaders from the fields of environment, conservation and development to take a systems view in exploring the interlinkages between climate change, biodiversity, hunger and poverty. Specifically, we will explore how large-scale efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect biodiversity, manage energy and water resources and alleviate poverty can be designed to mutually reinforce each other.

More generally, we will look at why the primary focus is always on technology and efficiency.  Why are solutions based on reviving nature, changing consumption patterns and, perhaps most important, accelerating the demographic transition through more rapid and equitable development not considered as legitimate?

* Ashok Khosla, Chairman, Development Alternatives and President, IUCN and The Club of Rome.

Por una dieta vegetariana. Crédito: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS

Por Mario Osava

RÍO DE JANEIRO (IPS/TerraViva)  La ganadería vacuna debería tener la misma prioridad que el cambio climático, las armas nucleares y las guerras en el debate internacional, pero no está en la pauta, lamentó el activista brasileño João Meirelles Filho, autor de dos libros sobre la ocupación amazónica.

En Brasil la ganadería es la mayor causa de emisiones de gases invernadero, al provocar cuatro quintos de la deforestación amazónica y tres cuartos de las quemas de bosques y vegetación agrícola en todo el país, además generar el grueso del gas metano emitido en el proceso digestivo del vacuno.No se puede creer en la promesa brasileña de reducir esos gases, porque se basa en contener la deforestación sin tocar la verdadera causa de ella, que es la ganadería extensiva de vacunos, afirmó Meirelles a TerraViva. Sin enfrentar esa cuestión, Brasil no plantea en Copenhague ninguna política para el clima, sino cifras y metas irreales, sentenció.

Sin embargo, “la pecuaria no es la mayor responsable de la emisión de gases del efecto invernadero en Brasil”, sino las “alteraciones en el uso de la tierra y los bosques”, que incluyen la deforestación, según dijo a TerraViva José Miguez, coordinador de la Comisión Interministerial de Cambio Climático, expresando la visión del gobierno.

Pero la diatriba de Meirelles, solitaria años atrás, fue confirmada ahora por 10 investigadores brasileños de varias universidades e institutos gubernamentales y una organización ambientalista. Por lo menos mitad de los gases invernadero emitidos en Brasil de 2003 a 2008 están asociados a la producción de ganado vacuno.

El estudio “Estimación de emisiones recientes de gases del efecto invernadero por la pecuaria en Brasil”, será presentado este sábado en Copenhague y reconoce una subestimación porque solo considera tres fuentes, la deforestación, quemas de pastizales y fermentación entérica de los vacunos, omitiendo otros factores, como pastizales degradados, alimentos animales, el transporte y la industrialización.

En la Amazonia brasileña había cerca de un millón de vacunos en 1970, hoy son 80 millones, con una “productividad” de solo uno por hectárea, destacó Meirelles para evidenciar la correlación con el avance de la deforestación en las últimas décadas. En todo el país son casi 200 millones, uno por cada habitante humano, y ocupan un cuarto del territorio nacional, tres veces el área sembrada.

No se trata de un problema amazónico ni exclusivamente brasileño, sino mundial. La Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO) estima que la ganadería ocupa 40 por ciento del área agrícola global, recordó Meirelles.

Los más de 1.200 millones de vacunos existentes en el mundo consumen mayor cantidad de alimentos que los 6.800 millones de personas, pero la mitad de la humanidad no consume su carne, un pequeño sector por razones religiosas y casi todos los demás por insuficiencia de ingresos, acotó.

No es sustentable la tendencia de creciente consumo de carne vacuna, que se registra especialmente en China, donde aún está limitada a seis kilogramos anuales por persona, lejos de los 36 kilos en Brasil y los más de 60 en Argentina, sostuvo Meirelles, presidente del Instituto Peabirú, que promueve el desarrollo sustentable y social en la Amazonia.

Además de ineficiente productor de proteína, pues requiere ocho kilos de forraje por cada kilo de carne, el vacuno es un depredador ambiental y social. En Brasil el mismo gremio de grandes agricultores y ganaderos estima que hay 70 millones de hectáreas de pastizales degradados.

La expansión de la ganadería extensiva constituye, de hecho, el único ciclo económico de Brasil, la forma principal de ocupación de todo el territorio nacional, según Meirelles, al contrario de  los “ciclos” del oro, del azúcar o del café, a los que se refieren los historiadores, porque fueron locales y limitados.

El ganado fue el instrumento histórico de ocupación del Bosque Atlántico, el “bioma” costero brasileño que perdió 93 por ciento de sus selvas originales, y de otros ecosistemas, como el Cerrado, la sabana central que tiene la mitad de su área ya deforestada. Esa historia se está repitiendo en la Amazonia, advirtió Meirelles.

A la deforestación y degradación de las tierras se suma la erosión, la sedimentación de los ríos y otros daños. En la inmensa y húmeda isla de Marajó, en la desembocadura del río Amazonas, tres millones de vacunos son los más terribles destructores de la naturaleza, pues “alteran los llanos, abren riachuelos y cambian el régimen hídrico”, según el activista.

Además, el avance del vacuno tiene costos sociales absurdos, pues fomenta numerosos casos de trabajo esclavo moderno y conflictos agrarios cruentos, al ser usado para asegurar la posesión ilegal de tierras, generando un mínimo de empleos.

No es una actividad rentable, la mayoría de los ganaderos amazónicos viven mal, observó Meirelles, que se ha dedicado a desarrollar alternativas sustentables en lo ambiental y lo económico.

En su opinión, habrá que reducir drásticamente el ganado vacuno en Brasil y en el mundo, generando conciencia para un menor consumo de su carne. Ese proceso cultural exige un tiempo, del que la humanidad no dispone para mitigar el cambio climático, reconoció. Por ende, las acciones y el liderazgo gubernamental se hacen urgentes para impulsar soluciones.

Brasil, al asumir el compromiso de reducir en 80 por ciento la deforestación amazónica hasta 2020, y con una ganadería tan extensa y dañina, debería colocar al sector en la pauta de las negociaciones climáticas y promover políticas que eviten esa catástrofe visible, pero escamoteada por “alguna ceguera inexplicable”, concluyó Meirelles.

Danish children planting trees. Credit: Ana Libisch/IPS

By Mohan Munasinghe*

COPENHAGUE (IPS/TerraViva) The climate is changing faster than forecast only two years ago: 2,700 experts at the IARU Climate Congress in March 2009 warned that the IPCC predictions made in 2007 are already out of date, for example 3 degrees C global temperature rise by 2100. The latest information indicates more severe warming exceeding 4-5 C.

Rising temperatures are already penalising the poor most, who ironically contributed least to the problem. Global warming is impacting global food and water supplies, raising sea levels, melting ice sheets and increasing the number and intensity of severe weather events.

The increase now predicted exceeds what scientists and the EU have identified as the upper limit of warming the world can afford in order to avert catastrophic climate change – i.e., a maximum of 2 degrees C temperature rise and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations of 400-450 parts per million (ppm).

Humanity already faces multiple threats that will destabilize the global system, like the ongoing economic collapse, persistent poverty and inequity, emerging resource shortages (including energy, food and water), conflicts and social polarisation, environmental damage, pandemics.

Climate change would become the ultimate risk multiplier that will worsen existing problems and trigger catastrophic outcomes. All these problems can and must be addressed together – piecemeal solutions have proved ineffective.

Given the underlying trends that science has revealed, shying away from an effective agreement in Copenhagen will be a major setback. And yet, the international climate negotiations are being carried out on the basis of what is politically viable as opposed to what nature requires and what new science informs.

The most effective method of tackling climate change is to incorporate adaptation and mitigation responses into an overall sustainable development strategy. The Sustainomics Framework shows how this can be achieved today, through empowerment and action based on existing knowledge that will make development more sustainable.

The three critical elements of sustainable development, economic, social and environmental must be given balanced consideration. Civil society and business must work together with governments to solve the problems.

We need to teach our young new ways of thinking, and give up unsustainable values of the past, such as greed. Finally, full life cycle analysis using integrated tools will help to make production and consumption more sustainable.

For example, re-examining the entire value chain from raw material extraction to consumer end use and disposal, identify areas where innovation can improve production sustainability and encourage sustainable consumption patterns among the 1.3 billion people who constitute the highest 20th percentile by income and account for over 80 percent of consumption.

The outlines of an agreement that reconciles both development rights and climate concerns, should include four key points:

•    Industrial countries (already exceeding safe per capita emission limits) should mitigate and restructure their development patterns to delink carbon emissions and economic growth, thereby making their continuing development more sustainable without undermining the quality of life.

•    The poorest countries and poorest groups who will suffer the worst impacts must be provided an adaptation safety net, to reduce their vulnerability to climate change impacts.

•    Intermediate countries could adopt innovative policies to “tunnel” through sustainability to prosperity, using technological and behavioural leapfrogging that learns from past experiences of the industrialized world.

•    Developing countries should be encouraged (with technical and financial assistance) to continue to make their development more sustainable, by following a growth path that not only addresses urgent development issues like poverty and hunger, but also is less carbon-intensive and reduces vulnerability to climate change impacts.

The key challenge now is ensure that the ever widening gulf between science and politics is bridged decisively. What politics simply does not understand is that weaker targets increase the risk of crossing irreversible tipping points that will lead to global instability.

Copenhagen must produce a global survival pact that maintains atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses at safe levels. To get the ball rolling, the rich (Annex 1) countries need to cut back emissions 40 percent or more by 2020 the latest, but their best offers so far are falling well short.

We are facing a planetary emergency that now threatens the survival of our civilisation and the habitability of the Earth. All human beings are stakeholders when it comes to sustainable development and climate change.

Everyone must strive to make development more sustainable -economically, socially and environmentally. By acting together now, we will make the planet a better and safer place for our children and grandchildren.

* Mohan Munasinghe is Chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Development, Colombo, Director General of the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester, and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace 2007, as vice-chair of IPCC-AR4.

Irma Luz Poma Canchumani, a Quechua woman from Peru, at Klimaforum. Credit: Daniela Estrada/IPS

“We came to Copenhagen to bring harmony to the whole world,” Irma Luz Poma Canchumani, a Quechua woman from Peru, told TerraViva. Her village participated with others in five countries – Canada, Cameroon, Kenya, Panama and the Philippines – in making a documentary produced by the British organisation InsightShare, which was shown at Klimaforum.

“In the video (called ‘Conversations with the Earth’) you can see reality. We did not come to accuse, we came to show that Pachamama (Mother Earth) is life, that water is life, not money. We want to show how we live,” said Poma, who travelled to Copenhagen with her mother, funded by InsightShare.

They both live in the town of Cochas Grande, where they say the climate is already changing. “For example, the water is disappearing. It comes from the snow and ice on the Huaytapallana mountain, which is gradually losing its ice cap. We need rain at seed time (for potatoes, maize, wheat, barley and beans) and there isn’t any,” she said.

“We want to infuse harmony and make the whole world aware that we must care for Pachamama, because Pachamama gives us life. You may have a lot of money, but what are you going to eat? Money?” asked María, who has also visited the Bella Center, where the official COP 15 negotiations are taking place.